STATE HOUSE ROUNDUP -- Civics lessons

Monday

Jun 4, 2018 at 10:15 AMJun 4, 2018 at 11:13 AM

A recap and analysis of the week in state government.

There ain't no party like a party party, and but can the Democratic Party stop Gov. Charlie Baker?

A month after Republicans gathered in Worcester to endorse their candidates for statewide office, it was the Democrats' turn. But as the more than 6,000 party faithful descended on the DCU Center, last week offered some foreboding reminders about the challenges that lie ahead.

The newest polling on the governor's race from WBUR showed that both Jay Gonzalez and Robert Massie trail Baker by 40 points. That is certainly understandable given the underlying results that showed 66 percent of voters still have no idea who Massie is and 79 percent have never heard of Gonzalez.

That means last weekend in Worcester was a can't-waste moment for both men looking to generate some headlines and win over some supporters to help them get their names and positions in front of more voters.

Perhaps even more alarming for Democrats, however, is not the fact that their top-tier gubernatorial field is struggling to gain traction, or that Baker has such a big lead without even campaigning, but that their base may not be interested in finding a Baker alternative at all.

Name recognition will improve. But what are Democrats to do about about the fact that Baker, with an overall 67 percent approval rating, is more popular among Democrats right now than he is among Republicans? The WBUR poll showed that Baker's favorable/unfavorable splits were 64/20 with Republicans, but 65/10 with Democrats.

Gonzalez and Massie tried to dent that image June 2. In a joint appearance on WGBH's Greater Boston May 31, Massie called Baker a "fraud" and an "empty suit," and Gonzalez repeated a favorite line of his that it's easy to be popular when you stand for nothing.

Both candidates also face the test of distinguishing themselves from the other. So far, that has meant Gonzalez highlighting his experience working from with the Beacon Hill power structure, and Massie being a "movement leader" working on the outside.

But if there was movement in the race last week leading into the convention, it appeared to be moving in Gonzalez's direction. The former Deval Patrick budget chief picked up a number of noteworthy endorsers, including Senate President Harriette Chandler, 2014 lieutenant governor nominee Steve Kerrigan and the co-chairs of Bernie Sanders's campaign for president in Massachusetts, Reps. Paul Mark and Mary Keefe.

The latter two should help Gonzalez eat into the narrative that he's the centrist in the race, and Massie represents the progressive Bernie wing of the party.

So, in the immortal words of John Kingston, "It's time to get this party started."

Kingston, of course, couldn't probably care less about whether Democrats chose to endorse Gonzalez or Massie (they chose Gonzalez), or how much support insurgent Boston City Councilor Josh Zakim got at the convention in his bid to topple a Beacon Hill staple, Secretary of State William Galvin. (Zakim got the endorsement, but Massie and Galvin both garnered enough support to qualify for the state primary ballot.)

Instead, the comment made by Kingston after a lunchtime speech at the Beacon Hill watering hole Carrie Nation was a reference to the fact that the multi-millionaire was launching a $500,000 media campaign for the next month to pitch himself as a "solid, sensible, common-sense conservative."

Kingston is the first candidate for U.S. Senate to move to the airwaves, and his radio and television spots are going to focus on how he could be the bridge-builder across aisles in Congress that Elizabeth Warren refuses to be.

A bridge-builder, Kingston said, like Baker.

Baker's penchant for working with Democrats, however, might be part of the reason 20 percent of Republicans don't like him, and why more than 27 percent of MassGOP convention delegates in April voted for Scott Lively, who is now suing the Republican Party.

For the second cycle in a row, the Massachusetts Republican Party is dealing with a lawsuit from a gubernatorial candidate who had the temerity to challenge Baker. In 2014, it was Mark Fisher who challenged the way the party counted delegate votes at the convention to initially deny him ballot access.

The party settled that suit with Fisher. Now Lively is suing over support the party gave Baker's re-election campaign during the signature-gathering phase before the party's executive committee took a vote to disregard its primary neutrality bylaws.

Lively did give the party an out, however, and has given the MassGOP a set of "demands" it must meet by June 11 for him to drop the suit, including the replacement of Republican Party Chairwoman Kirsten Hughes with someone acceptable to the conservative base and a $1 million donation from the pro-choice governor to a pro-life organization.

A party spokeswoman last week declined to comment on Lively's threats, on the advice of counsel, and Baker said he was unfamiliar with Lively's gambit, though the governor continues to dismiss the conservative pastor as someone not worth his attention.

Baker continued last week to insist that campaigning will have to wait until after the formal legislative sessions end July 31, and last week the House and Senate were busy trying to deliver the governor a $500 million, five-year extension of a life sciences initiative in time for the national 2018 BIO Convention that started arriving in Boston last weekend.

The Senate passed its version of the life sciences incentive package, while the House last week took up legislation that would require all public schools to teach American history and social science, including civics.

The House and Senate split over whether civics should be a graduation requirement (the Senate voted earlier this session to make it a requirement), but both seem to be in agreement that in the age of President Donald Trump and a dysfunctionally partisan Congress, civics education is more important than ever.

House Speaker Robert DeLeo also gave voting access advocates a glimmer of hope last week when he volunteered that he was very interested in hearing from Election Laws Committee Co-chairman John Mahoney about a bill that would move Massachusetts to automatic voter registration in a bid to increase voter enrollment and participation.

The speaker, however, seems less enthused about the prospects of adding an early voting window before this year's day-after-Labor Day Sept. 4 primary.